How to Hire A-Players: Finding the Top People for Your Team - Even If You Don't Have a Recruiting Department

Chapter 5. Don't Just Sit There. Reach Out

Leveraging your existing relationships, while essential, is not enough to keep your pipeline full of A-player prospects. You must continually expand your contacts in order to find and hire more A-players. While you typically don't have to do much more networking than you already are doing to find these people, identifying and connecting with A-players must become a focus of all your networking activities.

Recruiter in Chief

I once spoke to a group of about 100 engineers for a local trade association. Though the average age of the attendees was thirty, at one table sat a man in his fifties who stood out for both his polish and his confidence. I met him after my program and he introduced himself as Robert. He owned an engineering consulting firm in the region. I said to him, "Robert, I am looking around and this room is not exactly filled with your peers. Why are you here?" He looked right at me and immediately gave me this answer: "That's simple. I am recruiter in chief for my company."

Figure 5.1. Sources of A-Players: People in Your Circles

As recruiter in chief for your company, you own the responsibility for identifying A-players and bringing them to your team. Robert made himself available to the members of this engineering group as a leader and mentor in order to build his farm team. He did not actively recruit everyone he met or hand out ...